It is wonderful how time passes on board ship where there is nothing to mark it, and in this case the only break we had to the daily routine was occasional tiffs between the surgeon and the skipper. The former was anxious to get to the end of the voyage as quickly as possible, as he received ten shillings a head for all the prisoners that landed alive, and was sorely put out when every effort was not made to keep the old tub moving. The skipper, on the other hand, being paid by the month, preferred his comfort, and was fond of making all snug for the night in rough weather, and turning in, whilst we soldiers looked on with patience, if not contentment, for, as was the usual custom, we had received an advance of four months' pay upon leaving England, and didn't much care about landing till some more had become due. It is poor fun to go on shore with an empty pocket. I believe it was unfortunate for the convicts that the system of transportation was obliged to be abandoned, as any of them in those new countries were able to return to an honest life if they really chose to do so, which, in an old and thickly populated country like England, is a very difficult thing to do. At the time I am writing about, the system of assigned servants was in practice, and though it was liable to much abuse, and was largely abused, still it had this advantage, that it admitted of their return to ordinary life long before their sentences had expired. The system though, as I think, good in itself was shamefully administered, especially in the earliest years of the colony. At that time any free man or woman who had settled in the colony was not only entitled to a convict servant or servants, but could have any prisoner they liked, and this naturally led to the grossest abuses, of which the following is an example:-- Some men in England managed to find out that on a certain night, one of the mail coaches (and here comes in the coach) was to carry a large amount of bullion, which they concluded would be placed in the front boot of the coach, as the safest place, and in this they were not disappointed. They then secured the four inside places for that night, and whilst on the journey set to work to make a way into the boot and abstract the coin. Upon arriving at the end of the journey they immediately handed this over to their wives, who were in readiness to receive it, and straightway made off with it. The men were taken up, tried and convicted of the robbery, and sentenced to transportation. Soon after they landed in the new country they were assigned to their respective wives as servants, and, as is said in the children's story books, "lived very happily ever after."